@kemonine i also don't treat any of my online communications as truly private, regardless of channel. Like, you and me, alone in an isolated outdoor area with no devices, I would trust as about as private as I can get.

@kemonine And, additionally, act in a way that your admin can trust you :).

What I mean is... posting on their instance signifies an act of trusting the admin of that instance, just as the admin allowing you to post on their instance is an act of trust that you're not going to do something nefarious or put them in a bad situation (given the uncertain effect of recent pending changes in net neutrality laws).

@kemonine that should come as no surprise though. Even if there was no proper interface, it would probably be just a db query away.Solution: don't send sensitive messages over a federated network with no proper means of end-to-end verification or encryption.

@kemonine Fair enough, didn't think of that because I picture mostly small instances with just one admin, but I guess that applies to big ones.

And yes, it might need to be more explicit on the interface that admins can see DMs. But hey, "Mastodon" is this "privacy-respecting social network" where your data won't be sold to third parties or used against you, amirite?

@kemonine last paragraph was ironic. I mostly meant that to say 'hey, there are no technical limitations to make this a botnet and to make an instance sell your brain to the russians', in spite of the many claims especially as of lately of the Fediverse being so good at privacy.

@kemonine this also means you can report DM abuse to admins and they can see exactly what you're talking about without the need for receipts/screenshots. makes it substantially easier to ban bad actors.

It would be interesting if the software could be adjusted hide any non public posts (that haven't been reported) in admin view, like behind a CW kind of. It wouldn't be foolproof if the admin wanted to see them, but as an admin, it would be easier to not see "private" stuff without a reason.

@kemonine Don't trust your admins I'd say... and create democratic ways for the users of our instances to decide on this... sysadmins can't be the dictators of the flow of information... this responsibility has to be shared

@kemonine we are going to make calls for monthly general assemblies.. and the users which of our instance/node (we also give other services) are welcome to participate, help, contribute, and find better ways to sustain our data/servers.

@ajeremias@kemonine No you dont understand, theres no programatic way to enforce it, you can agree to do it that way, but theres always the risk of the account holder tossing everyone else out, ive seen it happen

@Laurelai@kemonine yeah but without trust life is not worth... and even if that happens, its easy to create another instance... we feel inspired by the movement of squats, which dedicates their time to squat empty buildings and find ways to govern them with direct democracy and consensus!! long live anarchy \o/

@ajeremias@kemonine Im an anarchist ok, but a lot of anarchists are pretty much ignorant to the signs of an authoritarian personality, how power structures work and how perverse incentives are created.

@ajeremias@kemonine The internet has one old rule that still applies: people in power are those who run things. If I decide to run an instance and to manage it alone and act like a dictator, it is my right.

If a couple people decide to run another and rule together while one of then admins, it is their right. Just as much as a hive of users co-managing an instance.

Just don't expect voice or power after simply registering on someone else's service.

@kemonine@angristan A server admin can always see anything you send through that server if it isn't end-to-end encrypted. In a big company like Facebook or Google they may have strict restrictions on who is allowed to read random people's private messages, but on a small server run by a single person, there's literally nobody other than that admin who can decide that.

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